48 Hrs (1982, directed by Walter Hill)

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

48 Hrs. begins with a violent and bloody jailbreak. The fearsome Billy Bear (Sonny Landham) helps his criminal associate, Albert Ganz (James Remar), escape from a chain gang and kills several guards in the process. Billy and Ganz then head to San Francisco, where they start killing their former associates while searching for Luther (David Patrick Kelly). Another bloody shootout leaves several detectives dead and SFPD Detective Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) looking for revenge.

That’s not the way you might expect one of the most famous comedies of the 80s to begin. It’s not until Jack arranges for another associate of of Ganz’s to be released from prison for 48 hours that anything humorous happens in the film. However, because Reggie Hammond is played by Eddie Murphy, 48 Hrs. quickly becomes very funny.

Murphy was appearing on Saturday Night Live when he was cast in 48 Hrs, in a role that was written with Richard Pryor in mind. One of the first things that Murphy requested was that the character’s name be changed from Willie Biggs to Reggie Hammond. Murphy made the role his own and watching him, it’s hard to believe that he was only 21 and also that 48 Hrs was his first film. Murphy performs with the confidence of a natural movie star. He’s good in the film’s most famous scene, where he pretends to be a cop and talks down an entire bar full of rednecks. (I can’t repeat his most famous line but everyone knows it.) But Murphy is even better in the scenes where he’s just reacting to Nolte’s slovenly cop.

The comedy in 48 Hrs comes from the mismatched partnership and initially hostile chemistry of Jack Cates and Reggie Hammond. Cates has a job to do while Reggie, understandably, wants to enjoy as much freedom as he can before he gets sent back to prison. The humor is so effective because it’s almost entirely character-based. There are no gags but there are two well-written characters with differing ways of looking at the world who have to learn how to work with each other. The two of them start out disliking and distrusting each other but ultimately become best friends, even if Jack does punch Reggie and Reggie does keep trying to steal Jack’s lighter. Because this is a Walter Hill movie, there’s still a lot of action. Nolte and Murphy may make you laugh but there’s nothing funny about full-on psycho performances of James Remar and Sonny Landham. 48 Hrs. not only allows Murphy and Nolte to show off their comedic ability but it also allows them to be true action heroes.

Popular with critics and audiences, 48 Hrs. was the most commercially successful film of 1982. It set the standard for most buddy-cop movies to this day and it introduced the world to Eddie Murphy.

Dead For A Dollar (2022, directed by Walter Hill)

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1897, bounty hunter Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz) is hired by wealthy Martin Kidd (Hamish Linklater) to track down Elijah Jones (Brandon Scott), the man who Martin says has kidnapped his wife. Accompanying Max is Alonzo Poe (Warren Burke), who served with Elijah in the Army.

From the start, Max suspects that Martin is not being completely forthright about the kidnapping and it does turn out that Rachel Kidd (Rachel Brosnahan) voluntarily left with Elijah and is planning on traveling to Cuba with him. Martin has hired crime baron Tiberio Vargas (Benjamin Bratt) to have Rachel raped and murdered because Martin thinks that the tragedy will help him launch his political career. Because Martin suspects that Max might not be trustworthy, he has hired Max’s rival, Joe Cribbens (Willem DaFoe), to track down Rachel as well.

This film has a cast that is full of talented people and it’s a western directed by someone who has proven himself to be one of the masters of genre, Walter Hill. I wanted to like Dead For A Dollar but the movie just didn’t work. Waltz and DaFoe are great actors but they just seem to be going through the motions and Rachel Bsonahan is miscast. Benjamin Bratt and Hamish Linklater are forgettable villains. Even worse, Dead For A Dollar has a washed-out visual style that you would never expect from a director like Walter Hill.

Rewatch The Long Riders instead.

Silverado (1985, directed by Lawrence Kasdan)

Posted on January 11, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In the old west, a cowboy named Emmet (Scott Glenn) teams up with a reformed outlaw named Paden (Kevin Kline) and they bust Emmet’s wild younger brother, Jake (Kevin Costner), out of jail. After Mal (Danny Glover) helps the three of them escape from a posse, they all end up going to the town of Silverado, where all four of them have business. Emmett and Jake want to protect their sister from the corrupt son (Ray Baker) of a cattle baron who was previously killed by Emmett. Mal wants to save his sister Rae (Lynn Whitfield) from an evil gambler (Jeff Goldblum). Paden discovers that Cobb (Brian Dennehy), his former partner-in-crime, is now the sheriff of Silverado and working for the cattle barons. When Paden tries to protect the new settlers (including Rosanne Arquette), it leads to a confrontation with his former partner.

In the 80s, when he wasn’t directing films like The Big Chill and The Accidental Tourist, Lawrence Kasdan specialized in paying homage to the films of Hollywood’s golden age. He started his directorial career with Body Heat, a modern film noir. He worked on the screenplays of both Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. With Silverado, Kasdan tried to resurrect the western.

Silverado is a traditional western with a few modern touches, like casting Jeff Goldblum as a gambler and John Cleese as the sheriff who wants to execute Kevin Costner. Silverado also has more humor than a typical western, largely thanks to Kevin Kline. Silverado starts out as a comedy before turning serious and grim once the four heroes finally reach Silverado.

Kasdan’s love of the genre is obvious in every frame of Silverado but, in trying to tell multiple stories at once, the movie spreads itself too thin. I like that Kasdan tried to shake things up by casting actors who most people wouldn’t expect to see in a western but both Kevin Kline and Brian Dennehy seem miscast in their roles and their final confrontation never becomes the epic moment that it needs to be. Scott Glenn and Kevin Costner are far more believable in their roles. Danny Glover is also believable but his character is underused.

Silverado was obviously a labor of love for Kasdan and it shows that, if nothing else, Kasdan understood the appeal of the genre and the beauty of the wide open frontier. The movie has its flaws but fans of westerns will appreciate his effort.

Great Moments In Television History #36: The Sopranos Premieres On HBO

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

On this day, 26 years ago, The Sopranos premiered on HBO and television (not to mention organized crime) would never be the same. Today, it can be easy to forget just how revolutionary that first season of The Sopranos was. What originally sounded like a joke — a gangster goes into therapy (a plot that had already been used in the film Analyze This) — turned out to be a powerful portrait of American society at the crossroads.

And it all started on January 10th, 1999.

Previous Moments In Television History:

No Holds Barred (1989, directed by Thomas J. Wright)

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In No Holds Barred, Hulk Hogan plays a professional wrestler who is best-known for his mustache, his thinning blonde hair, and for ripping his shirt in half when he climbs in the ring. Hulk Hogan is playing himself except that everyone in the movie calls him Rip Thomas. Why is Hogan renamed Rip Thomas? It seems strange because No Holds Barred features “Mean Gene” Okerlund and Jesse “The Body” Ventura as themselves and there’s nothing about Rip that’s any different from Hulk Hogan’s own wrestling persona.

Rip is the World Wrestling Federation Champion and is loved by fans across the globe. Rip may be fierce in the ring but outside of the ring, he loves children and is devoted to looking after his younger brother, Randy (Mark Pellegrino). Tom Brell (Kurt Fuller), the evil owner of World Television Network, wants to harness the star power of Rip but, when Rip refuses to sign with WTN, Brell goes his own way and hires ex-convict Zeus (Tiny Lister) to star in The Battle Of The Tough Guys.

Rip still wants nothing to do with Brell, not even when Brell sends Samantha Moore (Joan Severance) to seduce him. In fact, Rip is such a beacon of goodness that he brings Samantha over to his side. But when Zeus puts Randy in the hospital, Rip has no choice but to seek revenge in the ring.

No Holds Barred is a movie with an identity crisis. It’s a pro wrestling movie that was made to capitalize on Hulkamania and a lot of the humor was meant to appeal to the kids who were a huge part of Hogan’s fanbase but it’s also a movie in which people die, Samantha is nearly raped, and Randy is crippled by Zeus. The movie lacks the sense of fun that has made professional wrestling a worldwide phenomena. The most surprising thing about No Holds Barred is that Hulk Hogan has very little screen presence. I don’t think anyone would expect him to be a great actor but he also shows little of the charisma that made him a phenomena back in the day. Especially when compared to the ferocious Tiny Lister, Hogan is just boring. Maybe that’s the difference between Rip Thomas and Hulk Hogan.

David Paymer has a small role in No Holds Barred, playing a nervous television executive. Out of the cast, Paymer was the only one who later went on to be nominated for an Oscar and Jesse Ventura was the only one to later be elected governor of a state, at least so far. Hulk Hogan’s only 71. He’s still got time.

Counterpunch (2013, directed by Kenneth Castillo)

Posted on January 9, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Emilio Manrique (Alvaro Orlando) was born in the part of Miami that is never featured in any tourism commercials. With an absentee father (Steven Bauer) and an addict mother (Yennifer Behrens), Emilio struggled while growing up, getting in trouble and spending time in a mental hospital before he was given a good home by his uncle (Oscar Torre) and grandmother (Ivonne Coll). Boxing provides an escape for Enrique, a chance to make something out of himself. But few promoters are willing to take a chance on him, not with his criminal background and rumored mental health woes. Only Talia Portillo (Camila Banus), who is eager to prove herself as Miami’s first female boxing promoter, is willing to support Emilio but can even she get him a fight against the champion (Jilon VanOver).

From what I understand, Counterpunch was inspired by Alvaro Orlando’s actual life story. (Along with director Kenneth Castillo, he’s credited with writing the film’s screenplay.) Almost every boxing cliche is present in Counterpunch but I appreciated that the film took a look at not just how Emilio’s childhood set him on the path to becoming a boxer but also at what it did to him mentally. As fearsome as Emilio’s opponents are in the ring, the greatest threat to his success of a boxer comes from his own inner demons. Alvaro Orlando is believable as Emilio, which makes sense since it’s his story! Danny Trejo and Steven Bauer both show up in small roles. Trejo plays Emilio’s counselor and he gives a heartfelt performance, playing a character who doesn’t seem like he’s too far off from who Trejo actually is.

Counterpunch is a good boxing movie, even if it doesn’t exactly rewrite the rules of the genre.

Great Moments In Comic Book History #38: The Cover of Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

“You always have all the answers, Green Arrow … well, what’s your answer to that!?”

Green Lantern and Green Arrow were always mismatched as friends. Green Lantern was an upstanding citizen of the universe while Green Arrow was the former millionaire who now fighting for the working man. In Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 (August, 1971), they discovered that the Green Arrow’s arrows were being used by junkies to commit crimes so that they could pay for their habit. They were buying the arrows from Speedy, who was the Green Arrow’s own sidekick! Speedy had gotten hooked on heroin.

Along with a three-issue arc of The Amazing Spider-Man in which Harry Osborne developed a pill addiction, Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 was one of the first comic books to deal with drug addiction and it featured one of its own heroes getting hooked on a very real drug. Both artist Neal Adams and writer Denny O’Neil wanted to deal with the issue realistically. Neal Adams’s cover, featuring not just paraphernalia but Speedy in the act of shooting up, was considered to be very risky in 1971. Today, it’s the moment that DC finally made the move into exploring more mature storylines.

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Glass Jaw (2018, directed by Jeff Celentano)

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

When the daughter of his trainer dies of a drug overdose at his house, world light heavyweight champion Travis Austin (Lee Kholafai) takes the blame and goes to prison, even though the drugs were brought into his house by his sparring partner, Joe (Brandon Sklenar).

After four years of being incarcerated, Travis is released into a brand new world. His wife (Korrina Rico), who waited for his release and only cheated on him once in a moment of weakness, now works as a waitress and lives in a small apartment. Joe is now not only the light heavyweight champion but also refuses to help Travis get back on his feet. Travis finally ends up working at a gym, owned by the cantankerous Frank Maloney (Mark Rolston). It’s a tough life but an unexpected opportunity gives Travis a chance to win back his title.

Glass Jaw pretty much lost me as soon as Travis decided to take the rap and go to prison for something that Joe was responsible for. Being loyal is one thing but being stupid is something else and, by taking the fall, Travis put his wife in a terrible position. The film had all of the usual boxing cliches but the Big Fight at the end was strangely anti-climatic, even if both Kholafai and Sklenar looked credible while they were throwing punches at each other.

The best performance in the film was delivered by Jon Gries, who had a small role as Travis’s alcoholic father. I would have liked for the entire movie to have been about his character.

It’s Elvis Presley’s Birthday!

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Since today is Elvis Presley’s birthday, I’m going to share this photograph that my grandfather took in 1958, of Elvis reporting for his induction into the army. As far as I know, this picture has never been published anywhere other than on this site and my own personal blog.

Game Review: Get There On Time! (2024, Leticia Fox)

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

You’re awake! Your day has just begun! Can you get there on time!?

Get There On Time! is a game that I think everyone can relate to. Each day, you wake up. You are determined to get there on time. Where is there? It doesn’t matter. You just have to get there on time. Can you do it?

Get There On Time! is short and simple. It’s a game in that you are given a selection of options but, just as in real life, some times it doesn’t matter how many options you are given. This really is more of an existential joke than a traditional game, with each choice leading to the inevitable punchline. But it’s a joke that everyone can relate to.

Click here to play Get There On Time!